By BILL COATS, Times Staff Writer
Published October 23, 2005
LUTZ - Laura Renner strolled into the new sanctuary of Idlewild Baptist Church, and gasped, "Oh, my goodness."
Renner, a 54-year-old flute player in the church orchestra, had rehearsed several times on the orchestra platform behind the pulpit. But she had never visited the back row until Idlewild cut the ribbon Saturday on its $85-million new home.
"From down there, it doesn't look that big," said Renner of Lutz.
More than a thousand of Idlewild's 9,200 members meandered through the new buildings for similar experiences Saturday. They prayed in the cavernous Gatheria, a 35,000-square-foot lobby. They stepped behind the pulpit, gazing past the spotlights into the sweeping 1,400-seat balcony. Children clambered on tiptoes up to the 500-gallon aquariums at the preschool entrance.
"You may go anywhere you want to go," senior pastor Ken Whitten proclaimed after the ribbon cutting. "Last one out, turn the lights off."
Today, many more will converge triumphantly for Idlewild's first services in Lutz. With a seating capacity of nearly 5,200, the new sanctuary is one of the largest worship centers in the state.
Last Sunday, Idlewild held a final, standing-room-only service at its former location off Bearss Avenue. Whitten compared the occasion to Moses' final sermon to his followers before they crossed the Jordan after wandering 40 years in the wilderness. Moses told his people that God had provided manna to eat and had prevented their feet from swelling.
Whitten told his followers, "We need something to keep our heads from swelling."
Later, he added: "Bigger's not better. Smaller's not better. Better's better."
But bigger is decidedly bigger.
At 440,000 square feet, Idlewild's new building is about a third the size of the area's biggest shopping malls. It's twice as large as Tampa Bay's next biggest churches: Largo's First Baptist Church of Indian Rocks and Brandon's Bell Shoals Baptist Church.
Yet based on attendance, Idlewild is not the bay area's largest church. That distinction belongs to Without Walls International Church, which attracts 15,000 worshipers each weekend. It has a 3,200-seat worship center near Tampa International Airport. In August, Without Walls bought the 11,000-seat Lakeland sanctuary of Carpenter's Home Church.
Idlewild's 144 acres, meanwhile, are nearly quadruple that of any other church in Hillsborough County. The church's growing recreation program prompted it in the late 1990s to begin seeking such space, and the first construction on the new property consisted of nine ballfields.
Laura and Mark Phillips of Lutz reveled Saturday in the new church's Bible school wings. Previously, when they would arrive at the Bearss building, the Phillips' three daughters would promptly be taken elsewhere for Sunday school.
Ashley, 14, rode a bus to nearby Baptist conference grounds for classes in a gymnasium. Allison, 11, continued on the bus to the lunchroom of Buchanan Middle School. Anna, 4, joined other preschoolers in a temporary building on the church grounds.
"I'm just happy because our children are going to be on the same campus with us," Laura Phillips said.
Now, added Mark, there's space for more.
"The whole idea is, we're looking to reach more people."
Relatively little fanfare is planned for today beyond normal, if roomy, worship services. But even in a normal service, Idlewild has been known to parade 20 towering banners down the aisles.
"Secularly, they would call it a soft opening," said Ken Smith, Idlewild's minister of administration.
"We really didn't do it for any recognition," he said. "God did it."
The Memphis line
Despite appearances, Idlewild isn't a late bloomer. Its robust growth dates well into the 1970s, when Idlewild called itself the "Church that is Different," according to then-Pastor George Billings, now retired in St. Petersburg.
"We had numbers of well-known speakers and singers from all over to keep our platform "hot,' different and exciting," Billings wrote in an e-mail. "As well as using all of the talent in the church in every way we could."
The church instituted a "prayer chair," which a member in need could occupy near the pulpit so the congregation could focus its prayers on that person, Billings said.
During the 1970s, the church built a social hall and doubled the size of its sanctuary in Seminole Heights..
Dale DeBlock, an Idlewild member since 1970, said none of Idlewild's recent crowding rivals those years. "We had people jammed in there shoulder to shoulder, belly to back, and we had the doors open and people flowing down the steps," he said.
In 1987, Idlewild launched construction of an 1,800-seat church off Bearss Avenue. It worshiped at Chamberlain High School during most of the construction period.
All the church's pastors had links to the big time.
In 1980, Idlewild hired John Corts, who took a three-year break from his globe-trotting job as field manager with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
Corts was followed by David Brock, then son-in-law of Rev. Adrian Rogers of Memphis, one of America's most influential Baptists. In 1979, Rogers had been elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention as the first step in a conservative resurgence that revolutionized the nation's largest Protestant denomination. In March, Rogers retired as pastor of Memphis' Bellevue Baptist Church, which has some 30,000 members.
Brock brought four Bellevue alumni to Idlewild. After Brock left, they steered the church toward Whitten, who was Bellevue's singles minister at the time.
"There's always been a line between Memphis and Tampa," said Ron Upton, Idlewild's music leader.
DeBlock's wife, Yvonne, watched all this, but still is awed by the changes. "I don't think they ever realized that they were going to be this big," she said. Upton said that Whitten finished what Brock started, transforming Idlewild from a church led by lay volunteers to one led by a professional staff. Many large churches balk at that big-budget hurdle, capping their growth, he said. Idlewild now has a staff of 66.
Whitten reminded his congregation last Sunday that many doubted whether he should hire an orchestra leader when only six musicians belonged. Now there are nearly 60.
Cary Gaylord of Lutz represented Idlewild for 15 years as an attorney, then joined the church a year ago. He thinks Idlewild has mushroomed because of Whitten's communications skills, plus the leadership's commitment, foresight, unity and humility.
"I think they are genuinely humble, and their focus is on their mission and not on themselves," Gaylord said.
Corts, the former pastor, said that view is shared in national Baptist circles. "There's no puffed up pride there," he said.
DeBlock, the 35-year member, said many churches have labored and prayed to make church life exciting and friendly, yet few have achieved the results of Idlewild's leaders.
"I firmly believe that God is giving them this gift," DeBlock said. "They're special, but I don't think they're that special."
Power volleyball
Any church where weekly attendance exceeds 2,000 is labeled a "megachurch" by the Hartford (Conn.) Institute for Religion Research, which has studied them for several years. The Institute terms megachurches "the trendsetters of the contemporary Christian world" because so many smaller churches want to copy their success.
Idlewild fits in nicely. America's 1,200 megachurches are most common in the Sun Belt, particularly in Texas, California, Florida and Georgia, the institute found in a study in May. A 1999 study by the institute found that most megachurches are in suburbs, and most are nondenominational or Southern Baptist, like Idlewild.
Nearly all are led by a charismatic, authoritative senior pastor.
At Idlewild, the 51-year-old Whitten is the focal point. "He is not only a man of God, but he's a very, very effective advocate," Gaylord said.
Like many other megachurches, Idlewild emphasizes small-group Bible study or other fellowship.
Debra and Joe Tripp of Lutz were intimidated by the size when they began attending Idlewild's services 41/2 years ago. But that dissolved as the Lutz couple met friends in smaller groups. Each Tripp joined a Sunday School class. Joe Tripp sang in the choir and men's chorus. Debra Tripp joined an Idlewild "power volleyball" league, taught second-grade Sunday school and took a church-related bicycle trip across Florida.
"Now, I never go there without running into somebody I know," she said. "It's kind of like your small immediate church family."
